This blog dives into financial infidelity — the secret money moves that betray trust — and how couples can confront, understand, and heal from it.
Three Key Points:
Financial infidelity is driven by fear, not spite — people hide money to avoid conflict or shame.
The emotional fallout mirrors a sexual affair, often triggering a breakdown in trust.
These patterns are often inherited, and healing them now prevents passing them on.
We all know what cheating looks like when it comes to sex — secret hotel rooms, burner phones, illicit text messages. But what if I told you there’s another kind of cheating that happens way more often, cuts just as deep, and can absolutely wreck a relationship?
Yes, I’m talking about financial infidelity.
So, What Is Financial Infidelity?
Financial infidelity is anytime money is spent, saved, moved, or hidden without your partner’s knowledge — especially if it’s done intentionally, but even if it’s a lie of omission.
In a relationship, there are really two places we expect exclusivity: sex and money. And guess what? When people get disconnected emotionally, financially, or sexually, they go looking to fill that void — sometimes in a bedroom, sometimes in a bank account. Severe financial infidelity can emerge from this disconnect.
Sometimes it’s trauma-induced, sometimes it stems from patterns in a family system carried into the relationship. Often, people are doing the best they can within the relationship, and yet the behavior still persists.
Disconnection Breeds Deception
When one partner doesn’t feel safe, seen, or heard — boom. That’s where it starts. Emotional dysregulation kicks in. Maybe they feel like they can’t say no to that vacation, that Quinceanera, or the latest “must-have” for the kids. So what do they do?
They quietly open a credit card. Pull from the 401(k). Skip the property tax. Hide that IRS letter.
The need driving this? It’s emotional as much as it is financial. It’s the need to provide, to not disappoint, to keep the peace. And when you solve that need in secret, it becomes a cycle — one you’ll likely repeat… until you get caught.
Who’s Doing the Hiding?
In my experience, the split is more 50/50, but studies suggest men may be more likely to report financial infidelity in marriage. A survey by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) found that 47% of men versus 39% of women admitted to committing some form of financial deception. Specifically, men are more likely to hide major purchases or secret expenses from their partners.
Here’s what I see:
Men — especially those raised to be the breadwinner — often overspend to keep up appearances. They don’t know how to say “no,” and they fear seeming like they can’t provide. Sometimes, they spiral into maladaptive behaviors like gambling, drugs, or yes, sexual infidelity. (Side note: it’s very hard to hide an affair in a cashless society — those hotel charges and ATM withdrawals leave a trail.)
Women, on the other hand, may overspend on the home, kids, or grandkids — and keep it quiet. Very rarely do I see a mom overindulging in self-care beyond the family budget. Most of the time, their spending is on other people: buying school clothes or supplies for grandkids, helping fund family vacations, or covering expenses that should probably be shared.
Sometimes women get money from their own mothers and don’t disclose it to their partner. Sometimes they keep a “just-in-case” fund due to a previous divorce or trauma. Often, it’s driven by fear — fear of not being enough, fear of repeating the past, fear that they’ll once again find themselves financially unprepared and unsupported.
For either sex, the root is the same: a lack of safety and trust.
Generational Secrets and Multigenerational Lies
This stuff doesn’t stop with the couple. The kids see it. They absorb it. And they grow up thinking money is something you hide, not something you talk about. If mom lies to dad about where the money came from — and grandma’s in on it too — that’s not just a one-off. That’s a whole chain of secrecy stretching across generations. It teaches the next generation that silence around money is normal. And that silence? It doesn’t just spread — it institutionalizes itself.
That’s the real root of the infidelity — not just the act, but the inherited behavior. Generational secrets, unspoken fears, and learned deception embed themselves so deeply that undoing them takes massive effort. When we pass down silence, avoidance, and shame around money, we’re not just creating short-term problems — we’re handing our children an emotional inheritance of future mental health work they’ll have to do just to feel safe financially.
Changing that “OG code” — the original programming laid down in childhood — is enormously hard. So why not lay down a better code to begin with? That’s the gift of doing the work: you don’t outsource the healing to your kids. You break the cycle now. You shift the legacy.
How Do These Secrets Get Exposed?
Usually by accident.
- A letter from the IRS shows up before your partner gets to the mailbox.
- You try to refinance the house and discover a hidden $30k in credit card debt.
- A kid blurts out, “My Nikes were $200!” and suddenly the jig is up.
It’s almost always a “WTF?” moment — and then everything starts to unravel. That’s when thought spirals, shame, and control grab hold. The discovery hits just like sexual infidelity: there’s shock, confusion, anger, and betrayal. And what follows is often a scramble to figure out what’s real and what else has been hidden.
The Fallout: Control, Shame, and the Lockdown
Once the secret’s out, the emotional fallout looks a lot like that of an affair. The betrayed partner often reacts with anger, hurt, and disbelief — and reaches for control.
“Give me your credit cards.”
“No more cash.”
“You’re on a $100 budget.”
It’s an attempt to create order out of chaos. Meanwhile, the person who hid the money is drowning in shame. Their worst fear — being seen as bad with money — just came true. They feel stupid. Exposed. And now, the person they love doesn’t trust them.
This is the moment when power dynamics around money often shift. When secrecy and shame are discovered, what follows is often a full financial lockdown. And rebuilding trust from that place takes real work.
Women Do Take Financial Control — Don’t Get It Twisted
If you think only men take the financial reins in a marriage, you’d be wrong. Women control 70–80% of the household spending. So when she finds out he lied or screwed up the money?
“Oh, I love you, you big Homer Simpson-looking goofball. But you don’t get to spend anymore.”
She takes the Amex. The debit card. She takes control — because she’s the boss and she knows where every dollar goes. He can’t even find his socks.
Rebuilding Trust After the Financial Affair
The steps to rebuild? Same as with sexual infidelity:
- Cool off
- Take accountability
- Communicate
- Start rebuilding trust — slowly
The good news? In our digital world, there are tools and apps galore to help couples rebuild transparency and track spending. Which, ironically, is why cash is a major red flag. Who needs cash in 2025?
If your partner is regularly taking out $300–400 in cash twice a week? Ding, ding, ding. Start asking questions. Because in this world, you don’t need cash to buy tacos — and you sure as hell don’t need it for “self-care.”
Final Thought: Talk About It Before You Hide It
The hardest part of all of this? Most people who commit financial infidelity aren’t trying to screw over their partner. They’re just scared. Scared of judgment. Scared of conflict. Scared of reliving past pain.
But hiding it doesn’t protect anyone — it just spreads the damage.
So if you’ve got a secret credit card, a hidden fund, or just some shame around spending… talk about it. Before the mailbox blows it all up.
And if you can’t talk about it yet — if you find yourself here as either the person hiding or the one being hid from — that’s okay. You might not feel safe enough yet. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck.
Go get help. There are professionals out there with the mental health and financial skills to guide you through coming clean, rebuilding trust, and moving forward. If this resonates with you on either side, now’s your shot. Don’t wait.
This blog was written by Jonathan Kolmetz MBA, MS
Licensed Professional Counselor. Follow him on Instagram @therapy.with.jon.
